Jouke van Dijk is professor of Regional Labour Market Analysis and chair of the Department of Economic Geography at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences of the University of Groningen. He also is President of the Board and Scientific Director of the Board of the Wadden Academy-KNAW, an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, that sets the agenda and coordinates research activities in the field of Ecology, Geology, Economics and Social Sciences in the Wadden area. Van Dijk graduated in 1981 in Regional Science at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Groningen. In 1986 he obtained his doctoral degree on the thesis ‘Migration and the Labour Market’. From 1981 till 1991 he held several positions at the Department of Spatial Economics of the Faculty of Economics.